How to Format Pie Charts in iBooks Author

Pie charts are great at presenting data that represents parts of a whole. If you’re working with a pie chart, the iBooks Chart inspector has no panes, just the common options that are always available, no matter which pane or other sections are active:

Presentation Type icon menu: You can change the type of graphics used to present your chart data by selecting a different option from the Presentation Type icon menu’s 19 options, which cover a range of bar, line, area, pie, scatterplot, and bar-and-line presentation types. The right side of the icon menu’s options are 3D types. If you choose one of these types, the 3D Chart panel appears. Drag your pointer within that panel to change the rotation of the 3D chart, as desired.

Edit Data button: Click the Edit Data button to open the Chart Data Editor panel, where you can edit the chart data.

Chart Colors button: Apply the desired fill colors and textures to the chart’s bars, lines, and pie segments by clicking the Chart Colors button, which opens the Chart Colors panel. In that panel, choose from the top pop-up menu the type of predefined fill you want (the options are 3D Texture Fills, 2D Image Fills, and 2D Color Fills). Then choose the desired predefined color scheme from the pop-up menu below (which has 12 options). Drag the preview swatch onto the chart element to which you want to apply that style; all elements in its data series get that fill and color scheme. Or click Apply All to apply the fill and color scheme to all the chart’s data elements; iBooks Author determines the specific color for each data series’ elements from the chosen color scheme’s palette.

To create a chart, use the Charts icon menu in the toolbar to choose the desired chart type (there are 19 types). Or you can choose Insert→Chart and then choose the desired chart type from the submenu that appears. iBooks Author creates a chart that uses sample data. It also displays the Chart inspector and the Chart Data Editor panel.

To format your pie chart, you also need to set the following options:

Show Title and Show Legend: The word Title appears above the chart, and you can edit it, as desired, by double-clicking it and entering (or pasting) your text. The legend appears in its own text box, and you can reposition it on the page or layout, as desired, by dragging it. If you don’t want a legend to appear, deselect this option.

Labels: Select this option to display labels containing the numeric data on each wedge in the pie chart. Use the Position slider to determine where the labels appear relative to the pie’s center; the minimum 30% value places them near the center, 100% places them at the edge of the pie, and the maximum 200% value places them far outside the pie. If you want the axis labels for the data series to appear with those numeric values, select the Show Series Name option.

Wedges: This section appears in the Chart inspector. Use the Explode slider, field, or stepper controls if you want to explode the pie chart’s wedges. You can rotate the pie by using the Rotation Angle wheel, field, or stepper controls. A value of 0 degrees (the default) has the first data series element’s wedge begin at the top-center of the pie, and the rest follow. Specify an (optional) drop shadow for the whole group or just the selected wedge by using the Shadow pop-up menu.